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Should Value Investors Buy Hilltop Holdings (HTH) Stock?

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Here at Zacks, our focus is on the proven Zacks Rank system, which emphasizes earnings estimates and estimate revisions to find great stocks. Nevertheless, we are always paying attention to the latest value, growth, and momentum trends to underscore strong picks.

Of these, value investing is easily one of the most popular ways to find great stocks in any market environment. Value investors rely on traditional forms of analysis on key valuation metrics to find stocks that they believe are undervalued, leaving room for profits.

Luckily, Zacks has developed its own Style Scores system in an effort to find stocks with specific traits. Value investors will be interested in the system's "Value" category. Stocks with both "A" grades in the Value category and high Zacks Ranks are among the strongest value stocks on the market right now.

One company to watch right now is Hilltop Holdings (HTH - Free Report) . HTH is currently sporting a Zacks Rank of #2 (Buy) and an A for Value.

Another notable valuation metric for HTH is its P/B ratio of 0.95. Investors use the P/B ratio to look at a stock's market value versus its book value, which is defined as total assets minus total liabilities. This stock's P/B looks attractive against its industry's average P/B of 1.57. Over the past 12 months, HTH's P/B has been as high as 1.18 and as low as 0.80, with a median of 0.94.

Value investors also love the P/S ratio, which is calculated by simply dividing a stock's price with the company's sales. This is a prefered metric because revenue can't really be manipulated, so sales are often a truer performance indicator. HTH has a P/S ratio of 1.17. This compares to its industry's average P/S of 2.88.

These are just a handful of the figures considered in Hilltop Holdings's great Value grade. Still, they help show that the stock is likely being undervalued at the moment. Add this to the strength of its earnings outlook, and we can clearly see that HTH is an impressive value stock right now.


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